Rough Canvas (43 page)

“Love your fucking mouth…”

Poetry, the rough male response to fucking, being fucked. Invaded, penetrated,

filled, taken beyond satiation to exhaustion, all the answers there in post climactic aftermath, at least for that powerful, still moment of repleteness.

When it was over, Marcus was leaning fully against the wall, chest expanding and contracting like a bellows. His knees were…quivering. Filled with satisfaction and emotions too strong to form words, Thomas stayed on his knees and put his cheek on Marcus’ thigh, lips nuzzling the now drained cock, rubbing his knuckles slowly up and down the opposite column of thigh, brushing Marcus’ testicles with the movement, teasing his hip bone.

As Marcus’ touch moved from Thomas’ shoulder to cup his head, a deep breath left Thomas. He was aroused, of course, but he wanted to stay this way awhile. Just be this.

“When do you go back?” Marcus’ voice. Hard to read if Thomas didn’t know him,

heart, blood and bone.

Thomas raised his head, looked up that incredible terrain of curved muscle. As he rose, he stayed close, his body pressed against his lover’s. Marcus shifted, his thigh pressing knowingly against Thomas’ hard cock. His hand slid to Thomas’ nape, that possessive kneading touch. But his mouth was taut.

Thomas’ lips curved. “Don’t worry about that right now,” he murmured.

Marcus nodded. Looked out into the night and worried.

* * * * *

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Marcus found a pair of loose cotton lounging pants and they went to his roof

garden. While Thomas sketched, Marcus fell asleep on the grass, too exhausted by drink, sex and emotion to do anything different.

When he was snoring in an amusingly offensive way, Thomas squatted at his side, removed Marcus’ cell phone from beside his elbow and moved to the far end of the roof. He found the number he was looking for, took a deep breath, and hit the

preprogrammed button to dial it.

“Hello?”

A man. Shit. Thomas had hoped to talk to the woman first, not the man that

Thomas knew Marcus had once fucked. He forced himself to rally. Marcus was his now, and this man was married. “Josh?”

He didn’t know his last name, knew nothing except they were the closest friends Marcus had, if Julie and Marcus’ own references to them were true.

“This is Thomas. Marcus’ Thomas.” He didn’t know how else to go about saying it.

A pause, then a surge of alarm that came through clearly, even over a cell phone connection. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah…yeah. Well, no. Actually, not really. His dad just died, and I was thinking he could use some friends right about now. Do you…do you live nearby?”

“Jesus, he hasn’t told you anything about us, has he?”

Thomas hesitated, not sure what to say to that. Apparently the significance of that pause came through clearly as well.

“
Oh
.” A self-conscious chuckle. “Figures that’s the only thing the asshole would tell you. He hasn’t told us much about you either. It’s from what he
doesn’t
say that we figured out who you were to him. No wonder his stomach’s been bothering him, if his dad was sick. I knew that son of a bitch was lying about it not being him. Here, I’m putting Lauren on. Tell her what’s happening with him. She’s a doctor.”

“No, it’s not—” Thomas heard an exchange of words and then he was relieved,

despite the misunderstanding, to find himself talking to the woman.

“What are his symptoms? Are you at a hospital?”

“No, and in about five hours, his symptoms are going to be a massive hangover.”

Thomas chuckled wearily despite himself, ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Look, I probably shouldn’t be calling you, but I think you two are his closest friends, and he got some bad news today. I’m thinking if you’re nearby or planning to come this way soon, you could—”

“You’re not bugging out on him.”

“No,” Thomas said automatically, in response to the sharp tone of her voice. “That’s the thing. I’m going to have to go home in three or four days, and I’m hoping—”

“Thomas, you do realize you’re the love of his life, don’t you? So are you sticking this time or not?”

“I’m sticking,” he said, the simplest answer.

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A pause. “Oh. Well, good then. We’ll be up tomorrow night. Josh will cook. We’ll have a quiet night in. I’m going to let you talk to Josh some more.”

“No, I—” But she was gone. Thomas shook his head.

“Sorry, didn’t realize she was going to go after you like that. Women, Jesus. So tell me how he’s doing? And tell me when the hell did he get a dad? First we’ve heard of it.”

“I only heard about it a couple days ago…”

A few minutes later, when Thomas finished, Josh stayed silent for a long pause.

“Christ. Marcus and I have been friends a while, and I didn’t know anything about his family.”

Thomas felt a tightening in his gut. “I know. Me either, until this week.”

Another pause, as if Josh was having some trouble getting out the words. “Listen, Thomas, Lauren is my Mistress. She and Marcus shared me one night. Long story short.

One time, special circumstances. She’s everything to me. Marcus and I were never lovers. Got it?”

“Okay.” Thomas got his mind around it, took a more secure grip on the phone.

“Okay.”

“She’s a girl, so she’s going to say it the girly way—
ow
. But…” Josh’s voice got serious again. “She’s right. You’re everything to him. Don’t fuck him up. Okay?”

“I…” Thomas looked over at the sleeping man, his arm thrown over his eyes. “He’s everything to me too. I’ve got it straight now. He won’t shake me. But there’s one more thing I’ve got to do. That’s why I need you here. After I take care of it, he’s never getting rid of me.”

“Good. Because he’s a royal pain in the ass and you have our sympathy.”

Thomas grinned. After a few more moments of confirming plans, a guilty shock as he realized the two of them were at the tip end of Florida and would have to arrange a flight in, he hung up. Only to find Marcus awake and watching him.

“Josh and Lauren will be here for dinner tomorrow night,” Thomas informed him.

“Meddlesome prick. You think you have the right to handle me?”

“When you need handling. Why don’t we invite Julie over tomorrow morning if

she’s back from Massachusetts? We’ll fix her breakfast.”

Marcus considered him. “Okay,” he said at last. A sudden exhaustion crossed his face, the simmering belligerence just evaporating, making Thomas’ heart hurt for his lover. “I don’t have much in the kitchen. And the place is a fucking mess.”

“I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you just keep on napping? I’m going to finish this idea up, then I’ll wake you and we can head to bed.”

Marcus lay back on the grass. “Fine. But be sure you wake me. You’re feeling so nurturing right now, I don’t want you scooping me up in your manly arms and

carrying me back downstairs.”

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Thomas sent him an arch look. “Will you beat on my broad chest with your feeble fists if I do?”

“And ruin my manicure? Not likely. I would have Julie sock you in the eye though.

In the morning.”

“Then shut up and go to sleep. I’m working. Trying to make you money to keep

you in the manner to which Donald Trump wishes he could become accustomed.”

“Music to my ears. Tomorrow night I’ll have my biggest commission source and the one artist I know who can give him a run for his money in my house.” Marcus raised a brow. “Come to think of it, maybe I should keep you two separated, like the President and the Vice President, never in the same building.”

Thomas snorted. “J. Martin is your biggest commission check, another guy you’ve never let me meet.”

“You and the rest of the world. He’s very private. Likes living on some ass-end remote island off the coast of Florida.”

Thomas stopped dead. His charcoal made an uncontrolled smudge as he forgot to

remove it from the paper during his swift turn.

“
J
can actually stand for a name beginning with
J
,” Marcus pointed out. “Like Joshua. Josh.”

“I was talking to
J. Martin
? That’s Josh? Holy—why didn’t you tell me? Holy Christ.

I… You
fucked
J. Martin. Holy Christ.”

Thomas broke off, scowled when he saw Marcus with his hands laced behind his

head, eyes dancing with laughter at his reaction.

“So
now
it’s okay that I fucked him?”

“You
dick
. I’m going to throw you off this roof.”

“Security will not let you stay for dinner tomorrow night if you kill me,” Marcus said, rolling to his feet more quickly than expected as Thomas came after him. He dodged around a tree anchored in a massive clay planter.

“I’ll make it look like a suicide,” Thomas promised.

Marcus feinted left, but he was too tired and still too full of alcohol. Thomas tackled him and they rolled over the grass, throwing elbows. Somewhere along the way,

Marcus was laughing and Thomas forgot to be annoyed, suddenly just pleased to see his Master laughing, roughhousing as if they were teenagers. Thomas rocked back on his heels, shoving him away. Marcus sat up on his elbows, giving him an indulgent expression. “You’re pretty good to have around, pet. I could get used to it.”

“Don’t expect me to clean up your apartment ever again. This is a one-shot deal.”

“That’s why I have a maid service. Call them on my Rolodex. They’ll put it all back together and we’ll stay in bed, until dinner. They’re used to working around me.”

Thomas shook his head. “J. Martin. Marcus, he’s like—”

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“You’ll be as good as him. You’re on your way now.” Marcus said it bluntly,

watched the deep flush of pleasure rise in Thomas’ cheeks. “And he is a complete slob, a bohemian of the worst sort. Lauren has to make him wear shoes most days. You two will get along just fine.”

“And he’s…like me.”

Marcus easily picked up the direction of his thoughts. “Josh is a sexual submissive, like you, only he prefers women. One woman. Lauren. She’s extraordinary, and if I ever tried to lay a finger on him without permission, she’d break all ten of them.” Reaching out abruptly, he caught Thomas’ arm and pulled him to him, tumbling them over in the grass and suddenly having enough strength to pin Thomas under him. “The same thing I’d do to anyone who touches you.”

He traced Thomas’ bottom lip with his thumb, his eyes getting smoky and intent.

“We’re going to let the maid service do the apartment. I’ve got better things for you to do with your energy.”

“Insatiable monster.”

“You bet your fine ass.”

“
Your
fine ass,” Thomas corrected, a moment before his mouth was seized, his breath taken so he couldn’t tease his Master further.

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Marcus made fun of him when Thomas struggled over what shirt to wear, and

eventually borrowed one of Marcus’. But then, as if Thomas weren’t nervous enough, Marcus had to be on the phone when the doorbell rang.

As he moved to the door, he admonished himself firmly. “I will
not
act like a starstruck idiot.”

How Josh Martin’s photograph stayed out of the papers was a testament to just

how good Marcus was at simultaneously protecting and marketing artists. Even so, the fact that he was such a good friend and yet Thomas had never known much about him, like the most horrendous parts of Marcus’ life, bothered him.

But that kind of secrecy was over. Marcus and he had talked a lot in the past

twenty-four hours, enough that Thomas was able to push the feeling aside as he came face-to-face with one of the men who had inspired his own work. Thomas had pictured J. Martin a lot of ways, but he found Marcus’ description accurate.

In his early thirties, with brown and black hair streaked with blond, Josh was tall, about Thomas’ height. His gray eyes shifted restlessly. He was dressed casually in jeans and a snug dark T-shirt, revealing Celtic design tattoos around his wrists. Wire-rimmed glasses increased the stunning intensity of his gaze, but it also made him more boyish and sensually appealing at once.

The woman who had her hand threaded through the crook of his elbow had blue

eyes like crystals and straight blonde hair that moved like rippling lake water over her shoulders. A pediatric specialist and surgeon, Thomas remembered Marcus saying, and he could see her resilient character in the firmness of her delicate chin, the decisive slope of cheekbone, giving a hint of the type of Mistress she was as well as the type of physician.

Thomas realized with some amusement they were studying him as thoroughly as

he was studying them.

“I told you he was beautiful. Just as I remembered.” Lauren spoke first.

When Thomas raised a puzzled brow, she prodded his memory. “At the club
May I
Have This Dance?
a few years back. I was the Mistress in the balcony.”

“She’s got a way of breaking the ice, doesn’t she? ‘Yes, last time I saw you, you were being stripped naked in front of a bunch of strangers, myself included.’ Kind of makes it hard to be formal, not that we were going to pretend to do that.” Josh extended his hand. “Let me guess. He’s on an important overseas call to underscore how terribly important he is, and remind us that, as the artists, we are completely replaceable and expendable.”

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Thomas grinned despite himself. “You must be the expendable and replaceable J.

Martin.”

“Josh. You must be my replacement, if everything Marcus has told me about you is true.”

He’d pulled off the casual first comment well, Thomas thought, but that one

completely flummoxed him. Fortunately, Lauren came to his rescue.

“You’re exactly as I remember you, except a little thinner and more serious-looking.

Is Marcus making you look after that ulcer?” She brushed Thomas’ cheek in a kiss, laying her hand on his forearm as she did so, a light but confident grip. “We’d have been here sooner,” she continued, “but the whole year has been about the European tour. Keep in mind there are advantages to being a starving unknown. If Marcus makes you a success you might as well manacle yourself to your studio.”